Avatar: Fire and Ash review – Another marvel of CG craftsmanship from James Cameron

It’s time to go back to Pandora. Journeys to director James Cameron’s fictional alien planet have already inspired two of the highest-grossing movies of all time, Avatar (2009) and Avatar: The Way of Water (2022). Only a fool would bet against this third chapter, Avatar: Fire and Ash, doing the same.

With this Cameron’s third Avatar movie in a row, it’s a bold, brash return to this mo-cap created, CG-realised world, where you have little choice but to surrender yourself to the visual onslaught.

If The Way of Water was more of a hang-out movie, where Cameron introduced the ocean-dwelling Metkayina clan, Fire and Ash is a full-on all-out conflict. Set a year on from events of the preceding movie, the focus is once again Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), the former Marine who became one of the blue-skinned Na’vi people after transferring his consciousness permanently into his avatar.

He and his family, including wife Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), now live with the Metkayina – including Kate Winslet’s free-diving, pregnant Ronal – after leaving their own Omatikaya clan.

With the script again penned by Cameron and husband-and-wife team Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, this time the story introduces the Mangkwan clan, also known as the Ash People, a volcano-dwelling group led by the fearsome tribal leader, Varang (Oona Chaplin). The best antagonist in the Avatar franchise so far, brilliantly brought to life by Chaplin, the red-and-white-coloured Varang is power-hungry creature, at one with the elements.

She forges an uneasy alliance with Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), Jake’s nemesis – the fallen military commander resurrected as an Avatar "recombinant". Or as he puts it here, “I guess I don’t die that easy".

He is going gung-ho to take down Sully, as the human-led military group RDA look to colonise Pandora, despite humans still being unable to breathe the air on the surface of the planet. It is Quaritch who introduces Varang to “weapons of metal”, watching her eyes widen as she fires bullets. “Feels good, don’t it?” he purrs.

As the very political and ecological stability of Pandora is threatened, the RDA turns its forces to attacking the Tulkun, those beautiful whale-like creatures that dominate the planet’s oceans. It’s these scenes that hit home, as these peaceful innocents are harpooned in a moment that resonates to anyone who has seen footage of the decimation of the Earth’s whale population. Cameron may lack subtlety, but it can be denied these scenes decrying man’s destruction of Mother Nature feel powerful.

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With operations overseen by General Frances Ardmore (Edie Falco), there is also a return for the Ahab-like Captain Mick Scoresby (Brendan Cowell, on fine form), who now has a metal arm after losing his in The Way of Water. Flight of the Conchords’ Jermaine Clement, as Scoresby’s marine biologist, also reappears, although the film’s central figure is Spider (Jack Champion), the dreadlock-wearing son of the late Quaritch who was adopted by Sully’s family. His journey gives Fire and Ash much of its emotional heft, as the Quaritch avatar pursues Spider for his own nefarious ends.

At 3 hours 17 minutes, the film is long, maybe never quite justifying its length, with a story that is – to borrow a recent title – one battle after another. The message is hardly sophisticated (“killing will only bring more killing”) but its hard to deny the immersive quality of the 3D visuals, with every frame plunging you into Pandora.

If spending time in the bio-luminescent forests and turquoise oceans of an alien planet is your thing, then Fire and Ash does everything you’d hope. It’s a marvel of CG craftsmanship and of Cameron’s pursuit of perfection.

Avatar: Fire and Ash will debut in cinemas on Friday 19th December 2025 in the UK.

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